Adventure Is Out There

[D_Hoyt]

I’m optimistic that I will draw a limited entry elk tag in Utah in 2024 with 22 bonus points or a once-in-a-lifetime mountain goat permit with 20 bonus points .

I put my daughter in for general season rifle deer, youth elk, limited entry elk, and moose. This will be her second season hunting. Last year, she had a general season deer tag and took one shot with a muzzleloader. She missed that buck, but we had a lot of fun together. Those daddy daughter dates are my favorite.

I took my second dedicated hunter buck last year, so I’m on the bench this year for general season deer in Utah. Below are images of the two bucks that I took as a dedicated hunter.

2023 general season buck:

2022 general season buck:

We also bought points in Colorado and will do the same for Wyoming. The game plan is to start cashing those in starting in 2026 after I get back from my first hunt for plains game.

We finished renovating our home last year and we recently obtained building permits to build a 1,040 sq ft addition above our concrete garage. I’m going to be focused on framing up the addition, wrapping the exterior, and getting the roof on before winter. I will be building a man cave as part of this project in addition to the 550 sq ft studio apartment that will become a rental. Furthermore, my ceiling in my garage will also be 10 feet all the way around after this project, so I’ll have lots of places to hang up my mounts upstairs in the man cave and downstairs in the garage.

Best of luck to everyone in the draws and happy hunting.

Adventure is out there!

 

[D_Hoyt]

As anticipated, I drew a mountain goat permit. I know this herd is not what it was in the past, but there are still goats up there and I’m up for the adventure.

I’m very disappointed that my daughter did not draw any permits this year.

 

[D_Hoyt]

I won’t go looking for mountain goats for a few more weeks, but this is a cactus buck that I stumbled across recently. I’ve seen bigger cactus bucks on the Paunsaugunt, it this was the first one I’ve encountered in northern Utah.

 

[D_Hoyt]

I’ve been putting in a lot of hours building the apartment and man cave (my daughter wants to call it the adventure room) above my garage so it can be in a good spot by mid-July so I can focus on scouting and my mountain goat hunt. Mostly, I just want to get the roof on so the rain stays out. I should be able to finish framing the walls, do the sheathing on the walls and roof, and achieve some level of waterproofing by the end of June.

The south side with the 12 foot ceilings that taper down to 8 feet at the middle wall will be the apartment (550 square feet). The north side that goes from 8 foot walls down to 5 foot walls will be the man cave (450 square feet). There is also a small laundry room/closet in the west corner on the north side of the middle wall for the apartment. Obviously, I’d rather have the south side for a man cave, but the primary goal here is to build an apartment. I also have 9 foot ceilings in my 1,000 square foot garage where I can hang European mounts and the like.

Chances are, I’ll live in the apartment when I retire and I’ll rent out the house (or have one of our kids living there with their own family). I’m building this space because I want my kids, and other family members, to have a place to fall back on. Housing is so expensive.

 

[D_Hoyt]

June 21, 2024: Scouting Trip #1

I took the afternoon off from work and journeyed up into the Uintas. Some of the trails were a little wet, but overall, conditions were great. Which is code for “ no bugs.”

I took my time and glassed every rock pile and fly fished every pool. The fish could not resist an elk hair caddis. I caught so many that I lost track.

I only saw three goats: two nannies and one kid. I’m sure there were more in that pocket, but it was the middle of the day and for the most part, they were just sleeping in the shade.

My next trip will be on the north slope once the snow melt down a little more.

 

[D_Hoyt]

I did a 14 mile hike this weekend with my wife. We saw a few mountain goats scattered about. Only one billy so far. I’ve seen mostly nannies with kids. All of the nannies have at least one, if not two, kids. I’m always shocked by where the nannies take the kids in the cliffs.

I’ve been scouting from the bottom of the rock pile, not the top, so far. I’ll get up there in August. No rush.

The apartment/man cave is sheathed. It’s been too hot to work on it very much lately.

 

[D_Hoyt]

I’ve been extremely busy with family reunions and work for the past few weeks. I did make a quick trip up the mountain to do a little fishing and look for goats closer to the highway with my kids. I saw one goat from the highway perched on a cliff a few miles in.

This coming weekend, I’m doing a 20 mile overnight scouting trip with my brother-in-law. He’s going for the fishing, not the goats.

I have seen goats on every scouting trip this summer. They are there, but I still need to find a big billy. I’ve seen a few that are probably 3-5 years old.

 

[D_Hoyt]

I took a 21 mile hike last weekend with my brother-in-law. We caught some beautiful fish, but never saw a single mountain goat. The tiger trout were feeding on the surface at the lake and couldn’t resist a wooly bugger.

 

[D_Hoyt]

After two decades of waiting, it’s go time!!!

I’m meeting three of my brother-in-laws at the trailhead early this afternoon and my wife’s cousin is carpooling up with me from my house. My little brother and his best friend will hopefully get to our base camp ️ before dark. Between the seven of us, if there is a goat in the basin we should be able to find it, close the deal, and get it off the mountain pretty quick. The goats were there the last time I went in scouting.

My pack weighed in at 44.5 pounds including my gun and a spotting scope with a tripod.

Wish us luck .

 

[D_Hoyt]

After a 21 year wait, I was able to connect on a 6 year old billy mountain goat in the Uinta Mountains on opening day of my hunt. I was joined on my hunt by little brother and his friend, three of my brothers-in-law, and my wife’s cousin who I’ve hunted goats with before back in 2017.

Friday afternoon, we hiked in 7 miles (5+ hours uphill) to base camp. We saw one goat right above our camp that evening. The next morning we tried to put eyes on that same goat without any luck. However, by 8 am we had nine goats show up in the basin. The first two billies that we saw looked like twins, but they were in a very steep and rocky drainage on the west side of the basin where they would have undoubtedly rolled hundreds of yards after the shot.

Instead, I opted to go after a group of four goats on the east side of the basin that we spotted from camp. On the way up we bumped a nanny out of the cliffs, but she didn’t spook the four goats above her. Those four goats bedded down on the edge of a brushy area near a spring. My wife’s cousin and I hiking approximately 800 feet in elevation before getting to within 325 yards of three of the four goats. To our surprise, three of them were dry nannies, but the 4th one, the biggest bodied one, was a mature billy.

The other five people in our group sat in camp and watched the whole hunt unfold on natures television. They also caught a lot of fish in the lake and took long naps. They could see the bedded goat from camp, but they had no idea where we were at on the mountain.

We had to wait the billy out for a few hours on that super steep hillside before he got up out of his bed. It was a 40-45 degree shot uphill with my 7mm Rem Mag. My first shot hit his front shoulder and went up into his spinal cord. The second shot hit him in the neck while he was still moving. I sent a third bullet, but I must have missed. He only went about 20 feet and snagged up in the only brush for hundreds of feet. If he would have gone another 30-40 feet in either direction, he could have rolled hundreds of feet before snagging up in next trees.

After the shot, a couple of trail runners came cruising up the mountain with ease and came over to check him out. The wife in that group thought it was awesome, the husband was not as impressed. She took pictures with him, and a group picture once two of my brothers-in-law got up there with extra packs.

I shot him at 11:30 in the morning and it took us until 3:00 to get off the cliffs and back to camp. I fell hard twice and bent one of my trekking poles.

After packing up camp, we did the seven mile hike back to the trailhead in four hours. My initial 45 pound pack weighed over 80 pounds on the way out. That was almost half my body weight. My crew helped by carrying out the meat. They literally saved my life.

I got home at about 9:00, showed the goat to my wife and kids, and dropped him off at the taxidermist. I’m going to do a wall pedestal mount.

All in all it was the best hunt I’ve ever been on. Not just because I got a super nice 6 year old billy goat, but because of the people who were with me. It was by far our best family get together.

All together, in 31 hours I hiked 19 miles and did almost 4,000 feet of elevation gain. All my training and scouting this summer paid off.

Now I just need to recover for a few days.

 

[D_Hoyt]

I went back to my old stomping grounds in southern Utah over opening weekend of the general deer hunt. I did not have a tag, so I just took my big camera. I never saw a single buck Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. I did see a 100+ does and fawns that looked very healthy.

I am only posting this because I was mind boggled by the lack of bucks. My little brother who had a tag saw eight baby bucks Wednesday through Friday.

I'm really curious why that areas herds have plummeted so hard. I'm sure drought and hard winters impact them, but these herds have survived those natural impacts for decades.

On a different note, my man cave/apartment is coming along. It's almost ready for winter . The roof is finished, the windows and doors are installed, and the house wrap is finally finished. I do not like doing house wrap (my daughters picked the pink wrap from Home Depot).